


when in doubt (the safer way is not to act at all)

by Saul



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Murder Mystery, with a side of Politics and Slow Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6322687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The murder will stall our plans for unification. The Councillor gave the people an outlet for their discomfort in a harmless, bloodless manner; now, they’ll stew, and wonder, and even if the trial wraps up before the week’s end, our goals will be set back that much more.”</p><p>Damianos leveled an exasperated, unimpressed look at Laurent. </p><p>“You,” said the King, while Erasmus swallowed a biscuit and tried not be so obvious about his staring, “are being a cynic.”</p><p>( or: a murder mystery set one year after the Kings rise. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	when in doubt (the safer way is not to act at all)

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for Kings Rising! and, warning that this fic is set from Erasmus's point of view. his perspective definitely biases him on many topics. there are also oblique references to past canon-typical abuse.
> 
> in any case, please enjoy! this fic was supposed to be a silly little drabble about murder, but abolishing slavery, unifying two long-standing rival kingdoms, and Damen and Laurent being one hundred percent Married took control.

As any proper host knew, it wasn’t the amount of space that made a party great, but how one used it. 

Fortunately for the host’s nerves- in this case, a small-name lord in the north-east corner of Akielos-- his lodge sat in the midst of richly forested land, and he had several royally approved planners with him to aid in crafting the perfect hunting games. Unfortunately for him, the advisers were split evenly between Veretians and Akielons, and the differences in tastes made decorating and food planning an absolute nightmare. Ultimately it was decided since the lodge’s kitchens primarily stocked Akielon ingrediants, the dishes would be Akielon. In fairness and a gesture of goodwill, the spirits as well as the bedsheets came from across the border. No one was pleased, precisely, but everyone agreed it was the best that could be done.

The location had been picked for three primary reasons. One, the lodge itself had been built on a small island in the midst of a lake, and the view from any window was absolutely stunning. Two, the land abounded with wildlife due to being off all major roads and too wet to be good farmland. Three, the lord, Bakkhos, waived any lodging fee for all court members out of the goodness of his heart, and also because he boasted no history of slavery, had family on both the Veretian and Akielon sides of the border, and possessed a fair measure of pleasantly adaptable conversational ability.

Meant to strengthen relations between the Akielon and Veretian courts as well as display how nicely they could play together after a year of intense treaty negotiations, ambassadors and foreign noble guests were also invited. Thus, from Kings to squires to servants, Bakkhos’ lodge swelled in patronage. Bakkhos thanked the Gods and his royal advisers profusely for such an honor, though his wife glared daggers at him when she thought no one else saw. She was in charge of the decorations. The stress made her black hair frizzier than normal.

Erasmus, one of only two slaves permitted, kept his head low and his eyes lower. His best friend for the week would be his lord’s, Torveld’s, shoes, for he was not to walk in the main hall with his collar and cuffs, and there was no way he would be caught in public with either off. In consequence, Torveld sighed and shrugged in a loose, discontented _it is what it is_ gesture, and instructed Erasmus to tend to him in the kitchens, stables and bedroom only. 

While it lessened his usual workload, it felt… wrong to be barred from his master’s side. But so Torveld instructed, so Erasmus listened, and thus he sat alone on the plush bed in the vaguely Veretian-styled room and listened to the revelry of the celebration’s first night.

_Oi._

It sounded like quite the party. He wondered if any servants helped his lord in his place.

_Oi!_

Probably. His lord was a kind, out-going and well-known man; they would have to treat him with respect, even if they hadn’t months of experience in understanding his tastes. Yes, months. Months! Two years with his master, and they chose now to chain him to a bed rather than a person--

“ _Oi, wake up!_ You the ambassador’s boy?”

Erasmus blinked back up from the floor, spine straightening minutely as a stout maid came into view. She scowled at him, hoisting her basket of linens higher on her hip.

“Don’t flutter your pretty eyelashes at me, child. Get up. I need to change the bed, and you’re in the way.”

Reflex had him moving before he could think, his hands fisting in his skirt as she bustled past him and began stripping the bed. After a moment of watching her rough though efficient movements, he awkwardly cleared his throat and said, “I… I could do that, if it’d please you.”

“It’d please me plenty if you let me do my job. I’ve the leathers for your lord’s ride tomorrow - I’ll put ‘em by the wardrobe. You think you can keep track of that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She paused in her tidying to eye him suspiciously. Uncertain, he kept his gaze to the floor, his shoulder drooped low. She huffed at him and continued her work; eventually, she continued speaking, too. “Never liked your sort. Too quiet, too _de-ee-emure._ Like you ain’t got two pebbles to rub together in that skull of yours.”

He really wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say to that.

“Word is King Damianos’s fixing on decreasing your numbers. Good riddance, I say. About time, I say. Can’t trust a man who’s been born or sold as a dog. It’s barbaric, besides. Everyone in Vere thinks so.”

He kept quiet. She finished her work, dropped the leathers, and bustled back to the door with unhappy _tsk_ s under her breath.

Before she left, even though he wished very much she would just leave, she turned and fixed him with a withering look. At least, he thought she did - his eyes remained on the floor. She declared to him and the room, but mostly the room, “The nobles are mostly gathered, they’re having their banquet now, but the Kings arrive tomorrow. You keep outta sight, you hear me?”

As she swept out with another _tsk_ before he answered, his _I hear you, ma’am_ was for the room, too. It echoed back at him in a strained, tiny voice.

Later that night, his lord stumbled in with a pleased flush to his cheeks and a smile that grew once his eyes alighted upon Erasmus waiting on the bed, exactly as he had been left. He was clumsy, and stinking, and he would not stop squirming and snickering at every brush of skin. Eventually, he knocked him in the chin with his hand, hazily apologized, blinked blurrily at Erasmus’s flustered face, and then promptly fell asleep, snoring, across his chest. 

Carefully, he pulled the new linens up and over them, and settled back with a shaky sigh. It took him a long time to fall asleep. He was amazed his hammering heart didn’t wake Torveld.

The morning came - the Kings’ arrivals went smoothly, though true to his word (not that he had any say in the matter, it was simply how the days went), he saw neither hide nor hair of either royalty. His lord came back later and later every night, and woke earlier and earlier. The festivities were a hit; everyone worked hard at showing themselves off, or so Erasmus observed from windows and balconies. The first round of hunting yielded two bucks and a bushel’s worth of quail. The second round yielded one more buck, a fox, two scratched hounds and a twisted ankle for a noble’s son. By the third round, rumor of bad weather began, and Torveld brought Erasmus to the stables to outfit his steed and then wait for his return, which made the day pass much quicker. Torveld also sent him on a number of errands around the lodge while the aristocrats hunted, and though he had to ask for help from the more generous ( _pitying_ , more like: they looked at him like he was a poor, abused animal, and wouldn’t stop staring at his collar. Still, he couldn’t afford to be picky) staff to learn where to go for what, that helped the day pass, too. He was happiest to be back at his lord’s side in this unfamiliar landscape.

By the fourth of five rounds, the bad weather became a reality; a storm with the wrath of a God blanketed the lodge in a downpour, lightning and thunder crashing every few breathes. The cacophony rattled Erasmus’s already frayed nerves, the lake’s crashing waves reminding him of the boat journey that changed his life, but he was good at what he did, and attended dutifully to his lord’s steed in its wide stall.

The stables’ door slammed open, covered partially by the crack of thunder. Erasmus couldn’t help turning curious eyes toward whom it might be - the only other slave never left her bedroom, and the stablehands (much more prepared for this sort of care) had long left - but though the rattling of window panes hid the creak of armor, torchlight clearly outlined four Akielon guards. 

_Are they to ride in this weather?_ Erasmus wondered, eyes flickering back to his lord’s horse’s mane.

Then the stall doors slammed open, this time not covered by a thundering crash. Orders were shouted - the brush clattered to the stone ground as the guards grabbed his shoulders - and they dragged him from the stables to the lodge, through the hallways and into the main hall. For some reason, it wasn’t until he realized that was where they planned to take him that he began to protest, saying he had to remove his adornments or the lords would be angry; the guards shook him like a ragdoll, an action which shut him up, and then dozens of eyes locked on his bedraggled, soaking wet form as they dropped him in the center of the hall. Confused, petrified, trying feebly to think of what could be expected of him, he scrambled to arrange his limbs in something proper, something appropriate, and thought he managed - but when he focused on his clasped hands, he noticed a fine tremor, and knew he wasn’t the perfect picture he should have been. His first introduction to the gathering, and he couldn’t bow right. Oh, but his legs throbbed as if on fire. He told his limbs to stop their shaking. They did not listen.

“I protest! What is the meaning of this?” 

That was his lord’s voice. A few in the back murmured amongst themselves.

“Lord Torveld, please, be seated. _All_ patrons must be accounted for, for this-- grave incident.” A Veretian councillor spoke in heavily accented Akielon. An older one. Herold, was it? No. Herode. Yes.

“The slave resisted his arrest, Exalted One.” A guard reported to someone under the din that Herode’s proclamation kicked up. “Especially as we neared here. We dug him out of the stables.”

“He looks unable to walk, let alone resist arrest,” replied a deep voice that Erasmus would never forget.

The Veretian councillor switched to his native tongue, the words nothing more than garbled gibberish to the slave’s ears. The tremor became a full-bodied tremble as his clothes grew colder from rain-water, the stone floor borderline painful to kneel on for so long. Around him, shouts erupted. Akielons demanded translations.The translations were lost in the chaos. 

Above it all, his lord, Torveld’s, voice at last broke.

“There’s been a _murder?_ ” 

 

**( previously. )**

“The joint court is currently in session.”

“Be that as it may, this business cannot wait.”

“I insist it does.”

“Insist all you like-- hey, you! You’re dressed acceptably. Take this to the King of Akielos; if any ask, Commander Straton urges understanding for its urgency.”

“Comman--”

“Quiet, Atreus. I trust you to deliver this promptly, slave.”

Autumn came to Ios upon one soft breeze - this, Erasmus remembered with nostalgic fondness. The farmers wheeled in their most bountiful harvests; migratory birds appeared in ponds and atop pires; more and more, salt traveled into the city from across the sea. The signs little, most hardly noticed autumn passed before winter chilled the air. It wasn’t a big shift compared to Vere or Patras’ environment, he’d learned, but it felt gigantic when it was your entire world.

While the Commander and his second discussed whether or not to interrupt the court, Erasmus had put his mind toward the wind lazily curling through the window. The weather was pleasant and unchanged from his years of study under the royal trainer. It comforted him. Everything else had, after all, flipped onto its head. It wasn’t good for _his_ head to linger too much on it.

The Commander’s eyes bored into his reflexively prostrated form. He agreed with the Commander’s right hand man: the joint court shouldn’t be interrupted. No man or woman, let alone a slave, let alone an ambassador’s slave, interrupted gathered Kings. There was no way he could tell the Commander no. 

“Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”

Tone pitched to just the right level of submissive for single-minded men like the Commander, he soon found himself in possession of a wax-sealed missive as well as a growing sense of frustration. Purely on the Kings’ behalves, of course. His lord, Torveld, would most likely find his predicament amusing if he were around and not in the court he was now expected to interrupt.

But then, would the Commander know if he waited until court finished?

Erasmus eyed the parchment in his hand.

No, probably not.

That was not the proper thinking for a royal Akielon slave, but he hadn’t been an Akielon slave for twelve months.

He started toward the main hall’s gates, but he kept his pace languid and slow. With the nobility cleared out, even simply the halls were an incredible sight to behold. It should spark melancholy, he thought - he’d _said_ as much to Torveld’s other servants, the ones he had grown close to. He’d said, _It may be rough to return, but I’ll stay by my lord’s side._ He’d packed extra powder to cover a reddened in case Ios brought him to tears. He’d prepared! The servants had complimented his preparedness! 

All for naught. 

Alright, mostly naught. The autumn breeze brought nostalgia. It just didn’t bring pain. Maybe, he mused, it was because of how _different_ the palace felt in comparison to his young imagination. The rooms were open and bare - gorgeous, yes, and striking, but not… He didn’t know. He couldn’t think of the word. It was just different. Times had changed. The guards eyed his silver collar with something like distaste, which was not something his trainer had ever, ever spoken of; he hadn’t been sure how to react to that, truthfully, and so he had simply lowered his eyes and kept the slope of his shoulders unthreatening. His lord, Torveld, had thankfully ushered him and their bags to their quarters before long.

For instance, a change: even as he had dropped his head to answer Commander Straton, a voice in the back of his mind wondered on if the Commander even registered saying ‘slave.’ Erasmus _was_ one, of course! But as far as he knew, the King of Akielos granted freedom to all palace slaves not two months before. It caused quite the problematic shift in staffing, Melenius (the palace chef, who made exquisite flatbread and had never been a slave herself) groused to the ignorant new-comer. Most of the freed slaves did the same work, only now they had to learn entirely new social graces. The money must feel nice, she mused. The freedom, however, terrified most. Palace slaves never imagined leaving the palace - for those who had been let go of their work due to funding, ruin and despair sunk in deep.

Or so she supposed. No freed slave let go into the world managed to make it back into the palace, so she didn’t know, maybe those fellows were having the times of their lives. Unlikely, though. Very unlikely. Would Erasmus mind fetching Agapetos? That boy always fell asleep under the olive tree next to the stables. Honestly, this freedom business made people so lazy!

Agapetos had been a spry youth with a light in his dark eyes and a smile bright enough to blind. He indeed had fallen asleep under the olive tree. He had also recently reconnected with his mother - still a slave to a wealthy mason - and searched for five of her other yet-collared children on his down time. He couldn’t be happier with his lot in life, though he really needed to stop taking naps when the weather was so nice, he just couldn’t ever wake up in time.

Maybe freedom did make people lazy, Erasmus thought. He wasn’t too interested in trying - his lord, Torveld, was a fine master, one of the best masters, in fact, probably second only to the King of Akielos, and he couldn’t think of what he’d do otherwise. He was content. He had the feeling Melenius would say contentedness also made people lazy, but that may have been why she was a chef and not a diplomat. 

Another un-Akielon slave-like thought. If Ios did anything, came the glum notion, it made him keenly aware of the differences between Patran and Akielon expectation. Vere had cut into the middle on his transfer to his lord’s, Torveld’s, custody and made Patran custom seem like an Akielon oasis under a different name; now, he knew that not to be true (and also why some Patran noblemen thought him too shy, as had been commented obliquely to him a few times within the last year: Patran slaves simply didn’t possess the same standard Akielons’ did.)

(A good thing his lord, Torveld, was a learned man and so fond of different cultures. He found Erasmus not too shy or too gentle.) 

(A good thing his lord, Torveld, was his master. His heart always did a little fluttery dance when he thought that, even a year later and so many miles traveled. He was so lucky. So, so lucky--)

The court gates opened with the creaking of an extremely heavy door, startling the day-dreaming Erasmus into nearly knocking over a pot. After hastily recovering both his wits and the pot, he dropped to the floor in remembered Akielon fashion, the Commander’s missive clutched in one hand. Nobility filed out, broke into small groups - still largely divided between Veretian and Akielon, though a few mixed - and they retreated to the gardens, or their quarters, or wherever else their fancy took them. Erasmus waited, but his lord, Torveld, did not exit. Neither did the Vaskan ambassador, or Kings’ guards, or the Kings. Erasmus waited longer. The voices from within dimmed, but still, none exit. The missive grew damning in his hand. He waited. He waited alone. He had yet to see either Kings gathered - the very thought put dread in his heart, he had heard such odd rumors - and he would definitely continue that streak for as long as he could. Ideally, his lord would emerge first, and he could pass on the missive without confronting Akielon or Veretian royalty.

A slave-- no, a servant, they were all servants-- passed and asked if she might be of assistance to this light-skinned, collared foreigner. Face reddened, he declined, stood, and made his way into the hall, missive clutched to his chest like a life-line. 

Two days into arriving at Ios, and passing under the _Veretian_ King was making his heart climb into his throat. What non-sense! Then again, he had prepared for everything Akielon. He had not prepared for anything Veretian. Especially not the Veretian who acquiesced to delivering him to his lord, Torveld.

Head down, eyes down, he tip-toed along the wall in the direction of the throne. Those left - two Kings, one noble, and a handful of blue and red adorned guards - congregated toward the front, which Erasmus despaired quietly at. There was no way to get his lord’s attention without being rude, but no way to break the conversation without being even ruder. Oh, gods. What a pickle. Why had the Commander chosen him? He couldn’t be rude and besmirch his lord’s name. He came half-way into the room and lingered near a blue banner (its opposite was red; the pattern continued down the hall, red to blue to red to blue, intermixed and equal). He did not look up. He appraised the hall’s marble tile, found amazement at seeing it at last, anxious thoughts latching onto the soft light from high windows.

He nearly choked on his heart when a slightly accented words turned in his direction, the voice unmistakable even after a year, “Prince Torveld, would that lingering shadow happen to be your Erasmus?” And he was going to die here, this was the end, he’d really done it, he’d embarrassed his lord-- let justice be swift, and also let the missive be smudged and unintelligible, a fair price for what the Commander had him do.

Then his lord, Torveld, said, “Oh! Why, yes, that’s him! Erasmus, come closer,” and he thought he could live for a second longer to follow his master’s instruction, but then he was definitely going to find some soft earth to dig a grave to lie in. 

He dug his own by how slowly he approached, he thought; a year in Patras had made him rusty as an ancient hinge, and he thought himself clumsy with how he prostrated himself in front of the throne. It could have been nerves - he knew he was still skilled, if he might be allowed to say, which the Patras nobility occasionally wanted him to - but, no. He could also be not fit for the royal palace any longer. Were his feet correctly angled? Had he fallen so his clothing painted the proper picture? Oh, gods, what if he had something under his nails? How could he have something under his nails, he hadn’t touched anything but the missive since his morning bath.

“What have you there, Erasmus?” His lord, Torveld, asked, saving his skin yet again. 

Occasionally - always privately - his master spoke to him in Akielon. They were close, as far as masters and slaves went. Erasmus knew this (sometimes even relished in it, but he would never, ever, admit that, he’d take that straight to his soon-to-be-dug grave). His master called it practice; Erasmus enjoyed it, because even though he strived daily to learn Patran, Akielon would always flow off his tongue better. Also, he thought his Patran accent still terrible, _especially_ because his lord, Torveld, would sometimes hide a laugh behind a hand while discussing something as boring as weaving.

Here, his lord spoke Akielon. As did the Veretian prince. Good, because even if his Patran improved, his Veretian did not (another reason his master was one of the best: Torveld never bid Erasmus to travel to Vere with him. he had never told of the ice-ridged fear at the notion of returning to Arles, but somehow, his lord knew). So, he did, too.

“A message from Commander Straton, my liege.” Without looking up, he lifted the missive, its wax seal undoubtedly gleaming in the hall’s light. “For the King of Akielos’s eyes, he said.”

A sandaled foot stepped into his view. He’d heard many odd rumors.

“It carries Meniados’s seal.” 

But he never expected the one about Damianos spending months at Laurent’s feet to be true.

He never expected to see the strong, rebellious slave again - at least, not without his golden collar. In a way, Erasmus supposed he never would see that slave again: the man he owed his and his wayward kin’s life to was no slave, and had been no slave, no matter his adornments.

“You’ll have to excuse us, Prince Torveld.” Said King Laurent, the former prince with the kind mind. “We’ve been waiting some time for this message. You understand.”

“Certainly, Your Highness. I’ll bid you ado, Your Highness. And, Exalted. It’s been a - unique pleasure.”

The King of Akielos sounded _amused._ It seemed alright. “That it has been.” 

The Kings departed with their guards in tow. Erasmus kept his head down, but he could see from between his knees (- he knew he hadn’t angled his feet right! -) the sweep of twin cloaks, one blue and one red, and atop that, the retreating backs of familiar blond and black. 

He’d spent his entire youth training to serve the one in the fine silk chiton with a golden lion’s clasp. He’d spent a harrowing few weeks placing his hope in the unbowed back of a fellow slave. Now, he couldn’t fathom what he would do if the King were to look at him.

If he’d stayed, would he have been freed? Would he allowed to work within the palace, or would he be turned out? Would he have gone the way of Kallias?

Kallias, thoughts of whom crept upon him whether day or night--

“You may stand, Erasmus. Ah, what’s with that look on your face? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” That was his master, who was one of the best, but was also occasionally something of a pain in the side. Erasmus stood and carefully kept himself from trembling. Torveld, his lord and infrequent bully, chortled to himself, stepping close enough that his Patran words would remain trapped between them. “It is amazing. That _he_ had been of royal blood all along. We spoke to the rightful King.”

“I always thought he had the bearing of a leader,” Erasmus murmured, or muttered, depending on how gracious a person felt like being. Then he felt his face screw up in chastisement, because speaking so - even if it was to his incredible lord - within the royal court felt wrong, somehow. Torveld again laughed at him, which brought warmth back to his cheeks. 

 

 

They were due to leave for the hunting lodge within a fortnight. Before that, Erasmus learned quite a few things about the new life within the palace.

Or, he imagined it was new. He occasionally caught servants bowing lower than a servant should bow. They didn’t always catch themselves; when they did, they seemed more confused at the world than anything else. Guards and nobles didn’t notice, Erasmus thought - but then, the lack of word on the abolishment of slavery within the palace walls spoke louder than open protest. The Akielon people were unsure of the development.

Underneath the localized shift laid a larger tension: the merge between Vere and Akielos. If it weren’t for the Kings’ charisma-- Torveld, his lord, huffed as the two of them traveled to the communal baths- diplomacy would have been terribly stalled, if not outright impossible. The people adored their respective Kings. They were not so sure of the other. Depending on the individual, the reasons cited shifted fluidly between a disagreement on fashion sense to poor cuisine to outright accusations of barbarians and snakes. 

“Nikandros - do you remember him, Erasmus? The kyros of Ios, formerly of Delpha, and wasn’t _that_ an interesting, ah, shift - what was I saying?”

“About Nikandros, my lord?”

“Oh, yes. Nikandros. The word from _him_ is that the Kings don’t intend to stop at paper allegiances, repairing trade relations and loosening the border tensions. They wish to… _meld._ ”

Erasmus’s mouth found itself abruptly dry. He did his best to keep his tone light. “Is that so, my lord?”

As a man of noble birth and his master besides, Torveld held further comment until they were within the baths and knew themselves to be alone. His lord sank chest-deep in the steaming water, arms fanned out and head tipped back onto Erasmus’ lap where the slave perched behind him. For his part, Erasmus put the tension from the day into combing his fingers through his lord’s darkened strands, gently massaging his scalp. He may have grown rusty at the Akielon style, but he wasn’t a _failure_ \- he kept rubbing soft circles behind Torveld, his lord’s, ears, even when his lord, eyes closed, smiled a half-incredulous smile and murmured, “I can’t believe it either.”

Erasmus did not insult him by asking what he spoke of. A slave did not need validation for his feelings, let alone a place to voice his opinions (none of which had any place in political dealings). That his lord bent his ear to the unspoken meant only that he was exceptionally kind, which Erasmus already knew. He didn’t need to press his luck in any responses.

He sometimes wondered how much longer Torveld, his lord, would continue to dote on him so, but--- he didn’t wonder too long. It was out of his control. He’d known that since he plucked his first kithara’s strings.

Still, his lord continued, eyes drifting shut as he spoke. In this moment, he reminded Erasmus that at the end of the day, he - and his slaves - belonged to Patras. The outrage of negotiations betrayed, of war and raids, did not spring to his mind as it did for an Akielon. “The court is awash with the suspense of it all, however. There are too many whispers in the night for a joining to be completely out of question.”

Again, Erasmus swallowed with a dry mouth and dry throat. 

“Once, I’d have said-- ah, but, it doesn’t do to speak of a King’s sordid past. Let me just say, having met them before, I never would have imagined those two getting along so well. Then again, I never would have imagined… Hm.”

Erasmus kept his voice low, reluctant to hear its echo in the stone chamber. They were lucky not to have been interrupted yet. But if that had been a worry, his lord would have taken him to the private baths. “It was beyond imagination, my lord.”

“Yes,” came the agreement, as quiet as his, his lord’s eyes cracking open to settle on the high, bright ceiling, “I suppose it was. I always did have faith in that Laurent.”

“You must have had the fortune to meet the King of Vere at a very different time than I, Torveld.” Erasmus very nearly yanked out a chunk of his lord’s hair at the kyros’ entrance-- well, no, not actually, but in his _mind’s eye_ he did and he was very sorry about it even if it didn’t quite happen, but then he busied himself with extracting himself from his lord to bow as deeply as he could given the circumstances. Fortunately, Torveld had moved in the same moment; together, they must have made quite the picture of elegance… If only they weren’t caught in the baths with no silks on.

Also fortunately, Nikandros seemed to think they were fine. He nodded back, hung his towel and slid into the pool. Everyone pretended to relax. Correction: Torveld and Nikandros relaxed. Erasmus fretted. Erasmus fretted his way back into massaging his lord’s scalp, and looking at nothing but the way the steam curled up from the bath. He did not try to clear his closed-up throat or otherwise move, though his legs quickly lost circulation from kneeling on the stone rather than dangling at either side of his lord.

While he wondered _does my lord notice? Am I being obtuse? Should I fetch the towels?_ , his lord shifted his weight in the bath and, giving in to the curiousity that would definitely be his downfall, leaned forward just a centimeter. “Nikandros. I don’t mean to pry.”

“It’s fine. I could hear your musings from outside, and they’re fair questions to have.” 

From his periphery vision alone, he could swear the kyros tried to catch his eye. As he belonged to Torveld and Torveld alone, he did not meet them. Below the steam and clear water, his lord’s hands were pruning; they’d dallied too long, and the more the two nobles talked, the more any relaxation his lord gained would be lost. That made his stomach clench up.

A few other things added to that, maybe, but try as he might, he couldn’t close his ears.

“The Veretian council isn’t as adaptable as their King,” began the new-comer as he stretched out a leg and let out an exasperated, honest sigh. 

“Not everyone is meant to be an ambassador,” Torveld replied with good-natured laughter in his voice; the kyros cracked a smile. It was good of him not to point out diplomacy was a two-way street, which was something Torveld said when he was most frustrated with his fellow diplomats. “Why, it’s a talent I myself have spent many years practicing and have yet to master.”

“Children would learn faster than them.” Blunt, but not unkind. “They’ll have years yet at the rate the treaties are going. It’s better than war, don’t take me wrong. As far as I can tell, they enjoy dallying.”

With wry amusement, his hand raising shortly to dismiss Erasmus from his massaging and fretting (thus putting unoccupied hands in his lap), Torveld didn’t fight his grin. “It’s kinder to think they’re making sure to tie up loose ends, no?”

“It’s been a year of negotiations. I think King Damianos has made an excellent argument for the benefits, and there’s nothing left to discuss when it comes to the court. We should be focusing on bettering the relations between our peoples.”

Nikandros was a blunt but kind man, Erasmus thought. Then, a thought he shouldn’t have: it was no wonder he didn’t get along perfectly with Vere’s court.

His lord, Torveld, might have thought the same, but he had a bigger fish to fry. He eyed his companion for one moment, before slowly asking, care taken not to demand, “The people will fall in line behind great leaders like your King, and King Laurent. What obstacles face the court? Surely everyone has found their opinion on the subject?”

 _Oh, they have,_ muttered the kyros with a darker look, before he sighed again, stroked his chin, scratched his neck, and then, in a gust interrupted only occasionally with Torveld’s noises of a long-time mediator’s sympathy, listed the obstacles that faced a court that was and would always be greatly divided, no matter how close the Kings were. 

For starters, their elder council member, Herode, was obviously reluctant and equally unwilling to acknowledge his discomfort, or push hard for any one way. It made him an immobile object obscured in irritating indecision. This greatly irritated the Akielon kyros, especially Makedon, of whom insisted the old man should retire and allow an heir to take his place if he couldn’t make a choice. That caused quite the argument. Worse than him, however, was Mathe - another council member, the one with awful hair - of whom made his distaste for the entire idea well-known, but rather than abstain, he simply down-voted anything Akielon and campaigned strongly for anything Veretian. Next, an heir from the convicted Guion (whom had hung ten months prior for treason that wouldn’t ever be forgotten - had recently joined the council’s ranks, and though his mother Loyse undoubtedly pulled the strings, the boy’s inexperience meant he spent more time trying to hold his liquor and rub elbows than work out any problems. Loyse also, Nikandros grumbled, had a peculiar air that he couldn’t define whenever she lingered around King Damianos. It made the guards uneasy. It made him uneasy. If King Laurent didn’t protect what remained of her family like he did, she would be long gone.

“Are the Veretians the only issue?” His lord, Torveld, hedged. _Probably_ , thought Erasmus, and then reminded himself that Torveld was a Patran, and also reminded himself of King Laurent’s kindness, and thought King Laurent a rare exception indeed, and finally chided himself on these unsightly opinions that weren’t of use to anyone.

He spent so long mentally straightening himself out through the haze in his brain from staring at the steam and ignoring his numb legs - it wasn’t the worst, as evidenced by the puckered scar lines that would never ever fully fade and he _opened_ his ears in order to keep himself from repeating the cycle of _King Laurent is an exception._

In consequence, he missed a good portion of Nikandros’s divulging the Akielon court’s stance. His lord didn’t seem too concerned, however, so he couldn’t have missed anything too horrid. Though the name remained a mystery, he caught that an ambitious woman was trying to work her way into the court without marriage. She supported the merging. Due to King Laurent’s gift in tongues, larger Vaskan tribes visited on occasion. One leader, Halvik, was a particularly frequent visitor - in fact, she had been invited to attend the hunting games, though Nikandros couldn’t say whether or not she’d accepted. The Vaskan women supported the merge for whatever reason. 

The real struggle was in keeping a balance, Nikrandros pressed. He trusted their King, but the court would not settle for anything less than long-standing power in their favor, and miracle worker though Laurent was, he had a reputation to protect as much as anyone. He only had so much room to work in. And, anyway, you couldn’t cage snakes and expect them to thank you for it.

They spoke for a while longer. The secret to closing his ears came upon him, twenty minutes too late to be useful. The next thing he knew, Torveld, his lord, bid for his towel, thanked Nikandros for the conversation, and Erasmus helped him from the bath. Walking felt like pressing pins and needles into his feet, but he did not sway and he did not fall and the foreboding feeling of a monster lurking just around the corner grew ever stronger.

They could dress it up how they like, but - he had no business thinking this, but - they were hoping to cage snakes and be thanked for it with this allegiance.

That was one thing he learned in the time before the hunting games.

Here was another: the King of Vere and the King of Akielos never parted.

Of course they had to part when one returned to his respective capital, and they lived at their respective capitals, the diplomatic visits long but infrequent due to the necessary travel time. But when together, Erasmus observed and heard from multiple bemused sources, it was rare to catch one King without the other at his side or at least within eyesight. The incredible part for this thing that Erasmus learned was that the two managed the arrangement without apparent effort or disgrace. None would say they _relied_ on one another. They were Kings! They relied on none. Likewise, none would dare breathe a word that they were weak for their behaviour. More than a few said they took each other to bed (one young soldier by the name of Pallas always managed to be at the heart of these conversations, though he blushed a furiously pink color and refused to say anything concrete on the matter, probably because he was a good man at heart and understood boundaries. The Veretian guards were not as close-lipped, though their words were obviously fantasy). It was an opinion Erasmus privately agreed with but didn’t wish to envision. Not because they weren’t handsome-- it was just- it was-- _strange_ yet, reconciling what he knew of a slave and master with two proud Kings.

 _Anyway._ So they might not leave each other’s side, night or day. It was not his place to judge. 

A scant few called it a sign of their loyalty and friendship with one another, and consequently their kingdoms. On the opposite end, some grumbled that they tried too hard to project the need for unity.

Whatever the reason, it meant the afternoon Erasmus went to fetch his lord’s freshly cleaned linen from the outside lines and ran into a King Laurent without a King Damianos stood out like badly angled feet in a ritual bow. 

It happened in a hallway down from the slave door that he needed to enter. The first thing he noticed was, naturally, the blond hair. The second thing he noticed was that King Laurent hadn’t noticed his approach: the man stood with his back to Erasmus, head turned to look over the scraggly part of the courtyard, his heavy clothing laced to his chin in proper Veretian style. Scratching at his memory of Veretian clothing, the only concession to the warm weather the King gave was to forfeit his jacket. Caught in the moment, the King looked worn: shadows clung under sleeplessly bruised eyes, and the light shied from his cheekbones’ sharp cut. He looked, if royalty were ever capable of it, frayed and in need of mending, or at least a long rest. It was not the look of a man his lord, Torveld, would joke and dally with after a long court meeting.

No one else was around. No guards, no servants, no one but a King and a slave.

The third thing Erasmus noticed was how much care the staff took in mopping this area of the palace, which was to say they took very little care, and the dust in between the tile’s cracks filled his nose as he dropped to press his forehead to the floor, because it would not due to be caught staring, and King Laurent was due to notice him.

It took a while longer, actually, but eventually, clothing rustled as the King turned, and then a silence that originally had to be the intent to keep walking. There was a quick, quiet sound like a startled intake of breath, which didn’t make sense given how much noise the slave made on his approach, but he convinced himself he imagined it because if he didn’t that meant he startled a King and that had to be on the no-good list. Erasmus wondered what the King of Vere might see in the section of the courtyard that barely ever captured sun.

Then he wondered what the King ever saw in _him_ , because - “... Erasmus.” - the King remembered his name! And wasn’t that enough to chill the heart! After a second, the King added with a breath of what _might_ be wary amusement, his Akielon accented in a manner that even an ungenerous person would call pleasantly exotic, “By my memory, it’s been close to two years since we last met. You don’t have to bow like that for the whole time we’re conversing.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Erasmus did his best not to sputter but failed miserably, his arms feeling like jelly as he sat back on his knees, eyes focusing on the King’s shoes. “Your Akielon is superb, Your Highness.”

Now that was definitely some amusement in his voice. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” 

“It has paid off, Your Highness.” Uncertainty held on like a monkey in a shaken tree. Erasmus found his thoughts in too much disarray to pick out what the next topic should be; unwillingly, he felt the air between them grew thick with awkwardness. Or maybe that was just him, because the King seemed unruffled. That was good. That was really good. Being ruffled seemed like an unkingly thing to be.

“You’re looking well.”

Oh, gods. He resolutely did not fidget, though he wouldn’t be surprised if he was told he was sweating. “My liege, Torveld, is very kind. He has treated me very well over the years, and continues to do so.”

“As I’d thought.” With a newly contemplative tone, one of the king’s booted feet picking up to rest behind the other. “Tell me. Slavery is common in Patras, isn’t it?”

His voice stayed light and unthreatening. Erasmus’s answer remained flat from sheer willpower and deeply rooted training.

“Yes, sire.”

“The same can be still be said for Akielos. But change is in the wind.” The weariness he’d seen before must have been a trick of his mind - when surprise made him chance a glance at the King’s face, it was resolute and awake, the purple that lingered under his eyes looking nothing as much as trifling. “It isn’t a small undertaking. Ios has begun to feel the effects, and not all positive.”

 _I’m sorry, Your Highness, I’ve-- I have never been to the palace_ , he thought, swallowed, and swallowed again. The conversation confused him. Was the King looking for his opinion? What could a King expect from a slave? What could Erasmus expect from himself?

After a period of silence in which Erasmus dug himself deep into a pit of despair, the King breathed a sigh and waved his hand. He despaired further. He must not have said what the King wanted. _What did the King want?_ It felt like - being in the gardens, having a prince speak to him in far more accented Akielon about matters beyond his control, only a hundred times worse because there was no discernable reason for this conversation.

“It’s good to see you’re doing well, Erasmus.”

“And you, sire,” he murmured, head bowing despite himself as the King swept by. 

When the door down the hall creaked open and clicked shut, only then did Erasmus lift himself and scramble to finish his task. His heart took all afternoon to stop its hammering.

King Laurent was, indeed, an exception.

Unfortunately for Erasmus’s poor heart, he managed to run into the much more common sight of the Kings together not two days later. This time, he was coming _out_ of a slave’s door into the gardens, a basket of fruits from the kitchens in his arms. Again, there were no guards - in fact, what kind of guards did the Kings even have?! He supposed Ios’s palace was a safe location, but some warning for those walking around would be nice!

Unlike the previous meetings, Erasmus initially mistook the two bodies to be two young aristocrats stealing away for a moment alone. The shorter blond had his taller partner backed against a marble pillar, his mouth at the other’s jaw, hips slotted together and hands interlaced at their sides. They enjoyed the back garden’s privacy, alright; they’d need to head to a room if they grew any more heated.

Though he quickly diverted his eyes, he couldn’t beat a retreat before accidentally over-hearing their shared words, which was the point wherein Erasmus realized those weren’t any two heated sweethearts, they were _the Kings_ , and gods above, he really needed to learn to close his ears!

“Laurent,” said the King of Akielos, his voice clear despite how quickly Erasmus’s shouders hunched around his ears, “stop. I know what you’re-- Laurent, we are _talking about this_.”

It wasn’t difficult to imagine the King of Vere pulling away with a disgruntled look given how unhappy his response was. “We’ve discussed enough in front of our combined court - I’d rather not spend the remainder of our scant time talking.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say anything like that,” replied Damianos. “Can I have it in writing? I’ll have Nikandros second it. Then Herode can scrutinize it. Then the rest of the council can bicker over it. Then Herode can scrutinize it again and change one word before sending it back to the council. Finally, after two months, I’ll be able to use it.”

“Oh, be quiet.” 

Presumably Laurent employed Erasmus’ favorite tactic in shutting a person up, which was to occupy their mouth with better things (like your own mouth). It was something Torveld was growing better at noticing, but that didn’t always mean the victim had it in them to protest.

The King of Akielos was, however, a stronger man; this, Erasmus discovered when not even twelve seconds later, words again drifted over tastefully simple shrubbery to the slave’s ears. Said slave renewed his efforts to balance his fruits while pulling open the slave door. An apple escape the basket - in his head, he cursed loudly at having to spend any more time hearing what he wasn’t supposed to be hearing. For once, he wished he weren’t so good at being invisible. He was no gossip! He planned to share whatever he heard with Torveld, his lord, _only_ if it was relevant to Patras.

“I’m serious, Laurent,” started Damianos in a conversation that Erasmus wished they would have in the bedroom, “You look awful. You’ve looked awful since you arrived here.” 

Oh, what horrid foreplay. That wouldn’t get the King anywhere.

“I’m fine.” Here, Erasmus had to pause in his apple-grabbing and strain to hear, the King of Vere’s voice dropped so low. When he stole a glance through the shrubbery to check if they had noticed him yet, he found Damianos had a hand on Laurent’s cheek, the calloused fingers stroking slow and gentle. The King of Akielos’s concerned look would have melted the coldest mercenary’s heart. Laurent, no longer half as frigid as he once had been, didn’t stand a chance. “It’s nothing new. Sleep-- hasn’t been kind to me.”

Laurent handled the stumble in the middle of his words like a colt with its first steps, rocky and uncertain and looking fully willing to return to the safety of the ground and swear off venturing anywhere outside his comfort zone. Damianos responded without missing a beat, his forehead tipping forward to meet the blond’s.

“He’s gone.”

Again, Erasmus strained to hear. These ones came... not disgruntled, precisely. Almost disappointed. Or angry, but the kind of anger directed at one’s self. “I know that better than anyone. I was there for his execution. I chose the blade.”

“If you’d like--”

“Arles needs me by next month.”

“-- I coul--”

“Do not _coddle me._ ”

“It isn’t coddling, Laurent! I’m worried. If I’m noticing, who else might be?”

Whatever romance had been in the air rolled itself into a ditch and died. With no more danger of witnessing something inappropriate, the scene before his eyes became far more intimate. Erasmus chewed on the inside of his cheek, at last replaced the apple in his basket and began withdrawing. 

Laurent drawled, “Typically I would be in agreement about your poor observational skills,” shifted back and dislodged Damen. Erasmus noted their fingers remained interlaced. It seemed out of habit. “But in this field, you have an unfair advantage. These days, not many look and see beyond the crown.”

He also froze mid-way to his feet, because - he squinted - was that gold around their wrists?

Damianos wove his not-gold wrist around the King of Vere’s waist, pulled him closer and, in three slow, pointed steps, reversed their positions. Now the blond had his back against marble, and it was much harder to see him with the King of Akielos’s bulk in the way. He must have imagined the gold. A quick glance to his own silver-cuffed wrists and a mental shake. It _had to be_ his imagination, which played tricks on him more and more. “My advantage isn’t unfair. I worked hard for it.”

Even though he could no longer see, he heard the responding smile. The tension bled from the air, “Are you ever going to reap your reward, I wonder, or am I going to wait all week until spearing a boar gets your blood running again?”

“We aren’t finished talking about that,” warned Damianos in a murmur Erasmus mostly didn’t hear, because then the Akielon King had his partner’s hands pinned above his head, his skirt bunching up as Laurent pressed his knee between his legs, and the door _finally_ opened to let Erasmus scurry through.

 

 

There had been gold on King Damianos’s wrist. The matching glint peaking from under Laurent’s lacy shirt wouldn’t be a stretch to believe in. But if Kings wore slave’s cuffs, Erasmus despaired very little remained _a stretch_ to believe in.

All in all, gratitude filled his heart when his lord collected him for the carriages that took them to a smaller village for the joint hunting games. Ios was nothing like he thought, and passing the pike row where traitor’s heads were displayed began to remind him of Kallias no matter the time of day.

 

 

**( at present. )**

“Found two steps into his quarters, Councillor Mathe was pronounced dead this afternoon. His cause of death - blunt trauma to the back of the head, by any manner of round, dense objects.”

“No!”

So began an indistinct roar from the crowd.

“Here? Are we not safe?”

An aristocrat shouted, “The culprit must have taken him by surprise!” 

“Surely the weather is too bad for them to have fled. The murderer must be among us.” Another, his hand clutched to his mouth as if sickened, “Who, and why?”

And another, her voice a shrill slice through the outside storm, “The slave! Is that why he’s here?”

“No!” Torveld reared back as if slapped. “Erasmus? He would not!”

“Silence!” Commanded King Damianos, his voice the crack of a whip upon all their backs. King Laurent followed his every sentence with what Erasmus assumed to be a translated replication. King Damianos stood high at the front of the hall, his hands - one cuffed, one not - flat on the oak table before him. It was only then Erasmus noticed the remnants of a meal for all patrons. “It does no one good to panic and accuse without evidence. The guards have conducted an investigation while we feasted. The last to be seen near Councillor Mathe’s quarters, so they have gathered, is Erasmus, the slave.”

Erasmus’s head swam. The Akielon side of the court didn’t erupt into a roar again; rather, a damning silence settled on the crowd, and he knew dozens of eyes must lay on his drenched back. It felt like the straw that brought the camel’s back: the displacement and discomfort of the last days built to a head, and his lungs couldn’t bring in enough air. His face burned even as the rest of him felt submerged in ice.

It was not-- it wasn’t his place to protest, but- certainly, the King must wish to hear the truth. He had no reason to harm Councillor Mathe. His lord, Torveld, had no reason.

His lord kept silent, as was due. It would be a pesky thing to lose his freedom over a slave.

Still, a bit of him had hoped. He knew as well as the next no slave walked from an accusation as grave as murder, guilty or not.

Black spots danced in his eyes.

“However.” Continued the King, because grand though he might be, he was no mind reader. “We must be certain. There will be a trial.”

“Exalted One,” began his master, for he must have felt the precarious fence he balanced upon, and he was the best master Erasmus could have hoped for, “The slave has no motive.” 

“He may not,” came the grave reply, and the Veretian at the King’s side halted, “but you do, Prince Torveld. I must ask you to be escorted to your quarters willingly. As of right now, the slave is our primary suspect, not you. But you must understand.”

The shuffling sounds of sandaled feet and a small, easily quelled kerfluffle. Words continued to flow in the curling Veretian tongue. An Akielon noble warned that none should leave. Another responded they would be a fool to try in this weather. An armored gauntlet seized his shoulder and yanked him up; his vision swam, reddened, his throat aching in wheezing, airless coughs, his hands shackled over his slave cuffs, and then he knew no more. 

 

 

Upon waking, he found every part of his body to be in pain.

His head pounded; his joints ached from being stuck in one position too long; his tail bone throbbed from supporting his slumped weight. He couldn’t feel his fingers, lashed as his arms were to a pole behind him. When he brought his knees to his chest, his feet scraped along hay and dirt. His clothing carried a dampened chill; they had not changed him into drier garmets.

The hunting lodge never expected to be a makeshift prison - it was a pleasure home, and not outfitted with cells, let alone a dungeon. In consequence, the guards had dropped him in the kennels. The stalls were much tighter as compared to the stables, and lacked the insulation the prized horses received; hounds whuffed and howled a scratchy version of a wolf’s tune as rain dripped through the walls, the thunder that continued to roll working more than a handful into a frenzy. They were bound to be panicked all night. 

Stupidly, the thing Erasmus fixated on was the fact his skirt had ridden up and showed the nasty welts from the burning rods given to him not two years prior. Though Torveld long grew used to them and only occasionally gave paused, they burned as an ultimate mark of shame, and he did his best to keep them hidden. 

And now he couldn’t even cover them.

It was likely, his bubbling mind supplied, he would never be able to cover them.

In fact, continued those laughing, hysteric thoughts, he would never have to worry about them again.

Because his lord would be dead.

And he would be dead. 

So that was how he spent the night: weeping with the hounds, tears fat and thick, nose running, and clogged throat making the keening sounds of a creature left to bleed.

The storm raged on. Erasmus cried himself into a stupor and wavered at sleep’s edge; the guards broke his daze when they arrived, the clanging armor working even more dogs into a barking mess. They unraveled his bonds to again drag him up. Then, they took him back to the lodge, through a side-door and up curling stone stairs. Already damp clothes quickly soaked through a second time, though at least it washed off some of the dirt. He did not ask why or where they wanted him. He simply did his best to keep his feet under him - a task he didn’t always manage.

Although uncertain how long it had been since his first presentation, he imagined it couldn’t have been _terribly_ long. The rolling thunder and crashing lightning had calmed somewhat, but the rain continued its heavy deluge amidst howling wind. Strong as they were, the walls creaked and groaned.

The room the guards took him to was nothing impressive - sporting only a table, chairs and lounging sofa, it was most likely used as a spare study for whomever might reside in the bedrooms down the hall. That said, the furniture was not the highlight: rather, it was the larger than life man of whom occupied it.

His guides knocked him to his knees, though they didn’t have to help much: he fell in a graceless sprawl and recovered as best he could, his hair plastered to his eyes and face, his numb limbs clumsy and uncooperating. But he had once been the best, he had once been a boy meant for a prince, and a foreign surge of frustration gave him the strength gather himself into a bow any other would be jealous of. 

He also valiantly resisted the urge to sniff through his clogged nose.

King Damianos sat on the sofa’s edge, his powerful hands hung between his knees. He dismissed the guards. The door opened, the door closed. 

Silence. 

In the silence: _I never thought I could repay you for what you did, sire._ Words no slave should have for royalty. _I convinced Torveld to aide your battle, but that was nothing. You gave me a chance for everything._

The only thing that changed between then and now was he could be certain he’d never repay his debt.

“Lift your head, Erasmus.” He did, albeit slowly. The back of his neck throbbed, and the back of his head, and the inside of his head, but he kept his eyes on Damianos’ feet and refused to sway or let his teeth chatter. There would be no helping the trembling or gooseflesh, unfortunately. His clothing had grown quite cold. “It hasn’t precedence, but I wanted to speak with you myself. It’s been a while. A lot has changed. A councillor of our court is dead, for one.”

Erasmus opened his mouth and silently choked on thin air, his unbound arms unthinkingly drawn to his chest. Lesson one: _speak when spoken to._ Lesson two: _do not protest._ His training had not prepared him for this, for any of this. What did he think of abolishing slavery? Hah, that seemed a paltry concern in the face of this.

The King continued after a beat, the burn of his eyes drilling holes into his back. “Prince Torveld has been questioned all evening. Many believe King Laurent and my plans to unify our kingdoms would weaken our integrity, if not our military and regulations. As Patras’ ambassador, he has ground to gain from Councillor Mathe’s demise, given the abrupt hole in the opposition to our proposed allegiance between Akielos and Vere.”

Damianos spoke--- as if someone else, Erasmus realized. This was not the passionate, resolute tone of the man chained in Arles’ garden. Times had changed.

A protest rose from his belly, the words hot and foreign and unacceptable. A slave did not tell a King he was wrong, _even if he had to be._

Eventually, the King prompted, tone gentling. It relaxed something in Erasmus’ hindbrain, before he realized it relaxed that and tensed worse than a hare in a trap. “Erasmus. Do not lie to me.”

He sounded like a _Veretian._

“I would n-- .. never lie to you, Exalted One,” finally whispered its way out of his throat. 

Similar to before (giving Erasmus’s head another spin as old and new impressions mixed and conflicted), Damianos made him feel as if his words mattered. “I trust you wouldn’t. So then, tell me: where were you after our hunting party left?”

“The…” He had to bite off the word ‘slave’s.’ “The servants’ washroom, sire.”

“All afternoon?” 

“No, sire. Only to deliver my master’s clothing, sire. I-- I delivered my master’s clothing to the washers, and then, sire, then I returned to our quarters to clean the tables and floors.”

“Haven’t Bakkhos’s staff tended to your quarters?” He sounded honestly surprised, which honestly surprised Erasmus. 

He chose his words very, very carefully. “... The staff… has graciously allowed me to care for our private room.” They had been late and lazy, and their eyes glued to him whenever they came in, and their comments toward Erasmus (at that point confined to the bed for lack of anything else to do) as well as the slave down the hall had driven him to finding a way to keep them out for his own frazzled sake. “They saw I didn’t have much to do during the day, and took pity.”

The King didn’t seem entirely sold on his explanation, which ruined all normalcy the conversation garnered (and it barely had any). For some reason, he had a feeling Damianos wanted to ask _does Prince Torveld know about that?_ to which he would have to reply, _No, sire._

But, there was a death to discuss. Thus, “The staff report you entering and leaving Mathe’s rooms.”

At this, his voice jumped a few pitches. “I do not know if I did, Exalted One. I do not know which rooms are the Councillor’s. I’m sorry, sire, I--”

The King cut him off, “The third door in the west wing, the room with the bronze globe-- no, no, Erasmus, keep your head up. You must tell me what you did.”

The third door in the west wing? The one with the globe? The globe that sat proudly atop a bookshelf, the bed with green covers, the throw-pillows that didn’t exactly match the latticework on the doorway --

Unbidden, his eyes burned. This time, there was no resisting a loud,wet sniff, elbows drawn in even tighter. There was no seduction in this room - he knew the value of image as well as the next, perhaps even better since two years previous, but none of it could _help_. He hadn’t cried during his dreadful time in Arles, but what happened in Arles had been numbing, and more importantly, he hadn’t been so alone. “I’m sorry, sire. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

 _Ah._ “Take time, Erasmus.” _I can’t understand you like this_ was probably what he wanted to add, but he had the grace to sit back and look away while the slave collected himself. 

Finally, when his voice was more pleading than wailing which was as good as it could get, he scratched out, “I was in his rooms. The maid left cleaning supplies there. I had to fetch them, sire. But---”

“But?” After his too-long pause.

“But the Councillor was… was not in there. I swear it, Exalted One. My word is worth nothing, but I swear it to be true.”

“I believe you, Erasmus.” He breathed out at the proclamation, shaky and gasping. He ducked lower and at last wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Everything hurt. “You’ve always been an innocent. But the council - think me biased, as they always do toward slaves, and admittedly, all signs point to you and your master.”

Oh. He dropped his forehead to the ground, in part deference and in larger part to block out the room. “If… there is anything I might be capable of doing, I… please, Exalted One, I will do anything.” 

The sofa creaked as the King took his weight from it. Air brushed by Erasmus’s right side as Damianos walked to the study’s door; before it opened, however, he stopped, turned and spoke to the only other pair of ears. “If there’s one thing I will remember from our days before, it’s the invisibility of a good servant. I was never much of one, or so I’m told. You are, Erasmus. And I need you to tell me everything you’ve seen.”

He sounded like a King.

And then he continued into, “Your master depends on it,” as he opened the door, and the sentiment struck him as far more personal than it let on.

He bid him to wait a moment while he collected supplies. Aside from tucking his feet closer under his body, Erasmus didn’t budge.

Eventually Damianos returned with a roll of parchment, a quill, ink, and a large, tan robe that covered a large, grey towel. After passing the cloth bundle to Erasmus, who accepted it with a confused, muzzy-eyed look, he set up the desk for note-taking and then, after instructing Erasmus to make use of the towel and robe, sent a servant scurrying for food and drink. They were going to have a long night, he told Erasmus with a weary smile.

Erasmus duly removed his soaked garments, toweled off, wrapped himself in the robe, and knelt warily at the sofa’s foot, every inch of him weighed down in exhaustion. At last his body ceased its trembling; the King nodded approvingly, took a sheaf of parchment, dipped his quill, and began his questioning.

Calmer and warmer, the memories from the previous days lined up easier for recollection. Being scrutinized by _Damianos_ meant reluctance beyond belief at correcting himself after a misremembered detail came slowly, but the King’s peculiar brand of subconscious expectation and overwhelming patience forced Erasmus to take it one step at a time.

He recalled a fair-haired woman - he wasn’t sure of her name, only that she must have been an aristocrat, and most likely Veretian - receiving a green-stamped message in the small garden’s shadowy alcove. The nurse who delivered it had been the same who chastised ‘his kind’ the first night they arrived, though Erasmus kept that fact to himself. A boy - the one forced to remain behind from yesterday’s hunt due to his sprained ankle - had wandered in odd patterns around the lodge, too, Erasmus supposed, though at the time he had thought the young adult simply bored and restless. As he had his lord, Torveld, to attend in the evenings, and he hadn’t been allowed to attend any dinners, he didn’t see as much then, though he shared what he noticed of those who lingered in the stables or halls.

He himself had replaced the cleaning supplies in their proper closet after using them, rather than leave them against the shelf in Mathe’s room like the maid had. A book had fallen on his toe when he’d accidentally bumped the shelf; _they really needed to fasten its sides,_ he didn’t say.

“The injured man is Lyros’s second son. I can’t imagine he held any grudges against the Councillor.”

 _What of your kingdom’s merging?_ Erasmus thought, as well as, _Hasn’t he been acting oddly around you?_ But disregarded them as foolish. The King knew best. 

“And the fair-haired woman - of the wives in attendance, there’s four, five of them. Six, if Vannes is suspect.”

Erasmus was no help there. He couldn’t speak Veretian, let alone remember their twisting names.

About then, the food arrived. The King ate the rich cheeses and meats absently; when Erasmus thought he’d exhausted his information, he instructed him to outline what he knew of the staff. 

“Humbly, lord Bakkhos may know them better, Exalted One.”

“I don’t trust lord Bakkhos as well as I trust you, Erasmus.”

That shut him up. He outlined what impressions he had, which, he felt, were scant.

The storm outside limited itself to its torrential downpour, which was to say it let up not at all. The walls creaked at the wind’s insistence-- no warning came before their door opened to admit a slice of frosty displeasure in the shape of Vere’s King, of whom Erasmus accidentally made eye contact with before he dropped his head. The door closed behind him, and the man crossed the room in three long strides.

King Laurent spoke over him in the tongue he really should have spent more time getting to know. He sounded calm and controlled, but every instinct in the slave’s mind, honed through years of reading the smallest cues from his partners, screamed _upset._ The sleepless nights prior to the celebration probably hadn’t helped, and he had no idea if the King had slept any better since arrival. From what he saw, probably not.

King Damianos replied to King Laurent in a tolerant but clipped tone. No names appeared in their dialogue, though Erasmus’s nervous heart imagined they spoke of Prince Torveld and whatever the other King’s investigation yielded. 

Tension mounted, and mounted, and mounted - by the point Damianos pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, Laurent sprawled on the sofa in a loose, deceptively unconcerned arrangement, arms laid across the top. He crossed a leg, uncrossed the leg, and recrossed the other. Damianos gestured toward the food. He regarded his fellow King coolly, and then, without looking toward the slave, intoned in perfect Akielon, “Erasmus, why don’t you have a bite?”

In comparison to his memories of Laurent, the whole exchange struck him as _different_ as Damianos’ leading questions. It was in the King’s body language, perhaps; he moved with more confidence, more surety, and felt all the more deadly for it. In direct contrast, Damianos appeared wiser. 

But - a thought that caught Erasmus off-guard as he hastily accepted the King’s offer, both to not keep him waiting and for his snarling stomach’s sake - it wouldn’t be fair to limit either of their changes to simple things like words or movements. Only viewing the whole revealed the full effect, and it would take a better poet than Erasmus to describe that.

Moreover, it completely bamboozled him, and so he watched with wide eyes as the Kings conversed and he quietly ate.

“Do you recall the name of Lyros’s boy?” 

“The one that glares at you whenever he thinks no one looks? Yes. It’s Jacques.” 

“I’ve noticed he isn’t fond me.”

“The _horses_ have noticed he isn’t fond of you.”

“He’s spent his time alone skulking around the castle.”

“Odd, for someone advised to keep off his foot.”

“Agreed. But what issue could he have with the Councillor?”

“The murder will stall our plans for unification. Mathe gave the people an outlet for their discomfort in a harmless, bloodless manner; now, they’ll stew, and wonder, and even if the trial wraps up before the week’s end, our goals will be set back that much more.”

Damianos leveled an exasperated, unimpressed look at Laurent. 

Laurent shrugged. “What? It’s human nature.”

“You,” said the King, while Erasmus swallowed a bite-sized biscuit, lowering his head to peer through his bangs and not be so obvious, “are being a cynic.”

“Be that as it may,” came the cool reply, the King moving to the sofa’s edge and closer to Damianos’ side, ostensibly to point at the parchment (but he didn’t have to lean that far over the King’s shoulder to do so, really), “put Jacques toward the top. He never forgave us for his father’s execution, and Akielos’s past means he dislikes you far more than he dislikes me. -- If I might remind you, a Veretian councillor is dead. Optimism will not solve the murder case.” 

“Jacques had the time,” Damianos countered, not ever to be defeated, “but Kyrina has the motive. With Mathe dead, you’ll have to elect a new Councillor. She must be the fair-haired woman Erasmus saw.”

“Herode would have me by the ear if I so much as glanced at an Akielon for the seat.”

“She has ancestors in Vere. It would be a fine first step of our joining if you accepted an Akielon noble into your court.”

“It would be political suicide for me to replace the loudest nay-sayer with an _Akielon,_ no matter whom her grandfather slept with.”

“I never said she’d be smart about it. She’s desperate.”

“And she’s no Jokaste.”

For a brief moment, the storm gathered in their room: the temperature dropped and tensions rose. Erasmus froze with another biscuit to his mouth, and resisted the urge to hunker down into his robe. 

But then Laurent dropped his eyes to the parchment, his long lashes delicate shadows across his cheekbones, and leaned _just so_ , as if giving in and apologizing in one fluid movement (it was a pose Erasmus surprised himself in knowing), and said, “We’re missing something small but key.” The tension that gathered dispersed as if it had never existed.

They ran through their list again, in a mix of Veretian and Akielon that Erasmus hardly followed at all. He took care not to polish off the entire food plate, though he wanted to. Rather, he occupied himself with thinking over what he knew, too, and what they had said, his hands in his lap and body still as a statue. Exhaustion crept up on him as the night wore on into the early morning; the Kings showed no sign of tiring, though they did - as far as he could tell - begin to finish the other’s sentences. That, and they cut each other off. More the latter than the former.

Every so often one turned toward him and snapped or requested (depending on the question) a repeat of what he’d seen. He answered as best he could, but he couldn’t help feeling inadequate when, after what seemed like hours, Laurent sat back with a hand against his face and the first verbal betrayal of just how frustrated he was.

“We need this solved _before_ the celebration’s end.”

“We’ll have it solved before the night’s end,” stated Damianos, as if he could make it so by decree alone. For all Erasmus knew, he could. 

The two lapsed into silence: Damianos returned his attention, furrowed brow and all, to their chicken-scratch list. Laurent poured himself a goblet of water, sat back and grew distant.

Erasmus wondered why he was still here. He’d given all the information he could - now he was doing nothing less than intruding on their private discussion. Then again - the thoughts crept into his mind, insidious as snakes - with his reputation destroyed and his master under suspicion _because_ of him, he was a liability. A great, large, disgraced liability. His master had always favored him as an exquisite gift from Akielos, but at the end…

At the end, a slave did not walk away from this.

The robe and food became tinged pity, after that, his eyes trained on the floor and mind wiped with-- with- self-loathing. Yes. It had to be that.

 _What of my master?_ Broke through the daze. He managed to look back up, only to find Damianos and Laurent in a low, heated, Veretian discussion. 

Everything in him told him not to interrupt - _speak when spoken to!_ \- and that old instinct stilled his tongue for what felt like ages, but then -- the haze took over, a reckless abandon that found kin with other creatures close to their death - and he blurted out, “Sires?”

They continued speaking for a moment, before Damianos appeared to realize he’d spoken and snapped his dark eyes over like a hawk. 

Erasmus swallowed compulsively. No backing out now. 

“Sires. I--” _I’m sorry--_ no! He had a question! “I-- I apologize for interrupting, but - what of my master? What of Prince Torveld?”

Now they both stared at him.

Then King Laurent said, his eyebrows raised by a scant centimeter, “Hopefully, he won’t hold a grudge. If we may speak of miracles, Patras won’t press for reparations.”

Erasmus blinked, the confusion returning. Well. No. It didn’t return. It had always been there. It just returned to full force.

Damianos sighed, shot his fellow King a Look, and glanced back to Erasmus with something like sympathy. “Prince Torveld was never a true suspect. He’s confined to his room to keep the others unaware of what we’ve found.”

“Oh.” A beat. So his master had never been under threat.

...

Confusion might as well have been a drowning man given how much it didn't want to leave him.

“I heard they placed you in the kennels.” This from King Laurent, though he spoke while he stood and gazed down at the mess of parchment and ink on the desk, the guttering candle’s light a perpetual flicker. Damianos watched Laurent as if he expected him to smear ink over all their work and only a quick word would save their work. Erasmus wondered about that, but not for long - Laurent kept speaking. “The lodge wasn’t built for prisoners. All the same, that doesn’t sound fitting for you.”

This time, it was wariness that broke his mind’s confused haze. The recklessness yet in his veins, he eyed the King of Vere with uncertain caution. (He’d learned a little since he’d first been dragged from Akielos).

“You’ll just have to remain here until the trial. Which… I believe we are ready for, come the morning. What do you think, Damen?”

More than the proclamation of his entrapment, Erasmus started at the nickname -- Damianos, too, blinked, momentarily taken aback.

Wry, his arm draped over his chair’s back, “After the morning meal, so the council isn’t completely out of our favor.” 

Waving a hand, Laurent nodded. With an air of finality fit for a King and which brought about the tender look to Damianos’ strong features, he said, “Let it be done. Until then, we’ll review this once more. We’ll have quite the case to make.”

Did they know who the culprit was? 

\--- The King of Vere hadn’t lost his sharp mind, Erasmus realized, for blue eyes settled on him and the ghost of a smirk raised one edge of his lips. “It takes a full court to make a decision, as both of you may know.” 

“Does it? Another new way of thinking from you.” Damianos’s wry humor was evidently here to stay. “I’ll take that one in writing, too.”

 

 

The storm died with a whimper; an orange and blue sky appeared behind fading purple clouds, the sunlight waking up the three occupants of a crowded study better than the tea called in not an hour prior. They’d stayed up together: the Kings poured over their findings while Erasmus watched, dead-eyed and distant. Eventually Damianos bid him to move to the sofa, but he perched on the edge of it, hands clasped tight in his lap. 

Soldiers came and left, as well as a few royally dressed servants. The soldiers carried messages, commands and requests that the Kings felt beneath them to personally search for; the servants brought in food, drink, and new candles. They also opened the curtains once the storm passed, letting in the bright light that had Erasmus and Damianos, at least, blinking like owls.

Finally, a soldier knocked and informed them of breakfast. After he left, King Damianos stood and stretched, his back popping and expression a wince. King Laurent snorted at him, though he rolled back his own shoulders.

“It’s time, old man.”

“I’ve never been a fan of all-nighters,” groused the King under his breath, bending to re-lace his sandals. “Never mind when it’s all about plotting _murder suspects._ ”

King Laurent made a comment in Veretian, which was what they did when they didn’t want Erasmus to understand them. He wanted to be polite, and so didn’t point out that he didn’t need to know the language to know King Laurent somehow insulted Damianos’ patience or reading ability -- the King shot him a dirty look.

Erasmus, at this point on autopilot, dropped back to the floor and offered to tie the King of Akielos’s sandals for him. After a pause, Damianos acquiesced, with the look that he may have somewhat forgotten Erasmus’ presence ( _a slave’s best ability was to be invisible_ ). King Laurent then requested Erasmus aid him with his jacket’s laces. Another indiscernible look passed over his curly haired head between the two Kings. He didn’t want to know; he simply moved, silent, to do as told. 

New clothes had been brought for him - he changes swiftly in the corner, out of the robe and into a plain, elegant chiton with a single iron clasp. Its low neck and lack of sleeves highlights his silver adornments, in his opinion, but he doesn’t say anything about that, either.

Just before one of them grasps the doorknob to lead them out, the reckless abandon from before wells up and opens his mouth. This, he does say: “Sires?”

Again, inexplicably, they stop. He wonders at why they do that, but if he doesn’t speak now, he fears his words will be lost forever.

“It isn’t my place to make requests.” His throat dry, he hears his voice as if from far away. In his mind’s eye, he thought of the devilish, light-haired boy-- Nicaise had been his name. He thought of the boy’s ugly sneer, and the prodding and poking to urge his hurt body to perform, and the failure, and Kallias’s betrayal and eventual, lonely death. “But if I may make one, if - on my life, there may be one, may I ask to be burned?”

That was not what the Kings expected. Laurent was the first to respond, tone aloof but eyes narrowed. “Burned?”

Emptied of words and recklessness, Erasmus nodded and clenched his jaw so as to not shake.

Finally, Damianos broke their silence. “What do you speak of, Erasmus?”

“I--” Oh, gods, to spell it out - he floundered, and he didn’t even mean to. “I-- for- after my death, I-”

Laurent shot Damianos a Look not unlike the one Damianos had used on him.

Damianos looked as if the floor had dropped from under him. “Your death.” 

Again, Erasmus nodded.

When it didn’t seem like the Kings understood, he wondered where his words failed. He thought he might have puzzled it out, and volunteered what brought his request along. “During my earlier years in training,” forging through the flash in Damianos’s eyes, “I learned alongside another named Kallias. He had been intended for your late brother. I-- heard what happened to your late brother’s slaves, and I don’t wish to join my friend that way, though it would be appropriate.”

While the face gave away most emotion, Erasmus could not keep his eyes up for the duration of his request; though more difficult to read, the twitch in the King’s hand and subtle shift of his weight onto his heels told Erasmus clearly that he crossed a line. Again, he swallowed around a knot in his throat, but after everything-- after the cold, unwelcoming palace, after the scorn from a multitude, after humiliating his master and himself- he found himself nothing but _tired._

So, even if he could have, he didn’t look up from the floor. He simply stood and waited for his request to be denied, and the shackles return to his wrists.

“The beheadings,” began Damianos in a tight voice, “happened before I understood what it meant to be King. They didn’t deserved their punishment when they hadn’t once in their lives a choice in the matter.

“I--” A thin exhale, and this time Erasmus did flinch, the first and last time since his arrival in Akielos. Damianos made a frustrated, choked-off noise, his right hand curled into a fist. “-- Erasmus. There is no good reason your brethren died like a traitor; I only have excuses to give you, and those count for nothing. But I assure you, on my pride, _your life is not forfeit._ ”

Silence.

Erasmus nodded to the floor, because that seemed to be what the King wanted.

King Laurent opened the door, and they left the small, sunlit room.

 

 

The soldier who fetched them for breakfast was named Jord, and he was very much like a mother hen.

Erasmus observed this from the back of the group: the soldier spoke frankly in accented Akielon of the court’s unrest, and the nobles’ inclination to leave early, and Bakkhos’ aggravating anxiety. He dipped frequently into Veretian, but apparently he was to practice his Akielon, as King Laurent replied in nothing but the southern language. Jord was a mother hen because he was a natural busybody, as shown in by his persistent attempts at arranging time for a full breakfast before the trial or a moment for a bath or short, private rest. Once another soldier - no, once the kyros Nikandros joined them, Jord’s pestering died to a dry, background banter with the man, and the Kings conversed amongst themselves. 

Before they entered the more traveled halls, the King’s Guard approached Erasmus with shackles. He’d expected it since the beginning - he offered his wrists willingly. He did not miss King Damianos’ pinched expression, but he did not mention it.

More surprising: before the main hall’s doors opened (evidently where the makeshift trial would be held), the King of Vere fell back a step. To an outsider’s gaze, it must have seemed as if he made to check his chief suspect’s bounds for himself; in reality, he pitched his voice to carry only to Erasmus.

“Whatever is said, do not react.”

Then he returned to his place at Damianos’s side, and the great doors to the main hall opened. 

 

 

The trial went…

It went.

After introductions, the first matter of business was clearing Prince Torveld’s name. This matter, the Kings and court handled aptly; they released the Prince from his bonds within the first hour, whereupon he gratefully took a seat and only appeared a mite ruffled from the accusations. He was a good man in the company of good, albeit occasionally misguided, men. He would forgive. 

(But probably not immediately forget - Torveld had a long, long memory, for good and bad).

His lord, Torveld’s, cleared name did not mean his own shackles were removed. Rather than address the slave left to stand at the front, the King of Vere called upon Kyrina. They accused her of conspiracy against the Councillor. She pleaded for the maid to support her alibi, that she had indeed been sending messages, but only to her relatives in the north. 

The maid supported her, and further, swore tearfully that she saw Erasmus burying something in the gardens, right next to the rose bush. It must have been the murder weapon! The Councillor may have slighted him, and the slave went mad! Or did he act on his own to gain an advantage for his master? The accusation was news: the guards were sent to scour the gardens - behind him, the Kings remained impassive. 

Kyrina was allowed to return to her seat while the guards searched. Erasmus gave his word, small as it was, that he had not once ventured into the gardens. 

The guards returned with an unearthed, blood-flecked globe. Nikandros scrutinized it and proclaimed it suitable for the murder weapon-- the court erupted into a din of questions, while Erasmus swayed on the spot, his face white as a sheet. A noble spotted his fear, stood and pointed - “You see! Look! He’s guilty!”

 _No_ , whispered his mind, but there was no way he could speak.

“Hold!” That was the busybody soldier, Jord - the court quieted momentarily as King Laurent rose, his face a perfect mask. Unlike within the room, Erasmus couldn’t read him; it was like a different person stood behind the table. “The King of Vere wishes to speak.”

“Madame, describe for me the man you saw in the gardens.”

The maid’s mouth dropped open, her fingers tangled together in front of her, before she pointed at Erasmus and sputtered, “That one, Your Highness!”

“Don’t just point. _Describe_ him.”

Again, the maid floundered. “He… He was tall, and lanky. Not a fighter at all. He had on a long sleeved shirt, but it was real loose, like the sort that one lounges in. I’ve seen him, he’s got the same shirt.”

“The court would appreciate if you kept your description to the time in the garden, madame.” Drawled the King, dry as hay.

The maid flustered further, her hands smoothed anxiously down her skirt. “He had brown hair, and-- it looked lighter in the sun, I s’ppose, but it was definitely brown, and curly. And his skin, it was real light. I noticed him ‘cause he walked funny, like he didn’t know where he was going.”

“The slave has been reported to need frequent directions,” muttered Herode, his gnarled hands curled atop his knee. 

The King’s mouth became a thin line, though the tilt to his head seemed like a natural consequence of curiousity. “He ‘walked funny’ because he wandered aimlessly?”

“Yessir, yes, Your Highness. That, and--I didn’t watch him long, thought it queer he dug in the garden but it wasn’t any of my business what the slave did- he tilted as he walked.”

“In the manner of a man with a limp, perhaps?”

She paused, her face scrunched in thought. “Yessir. Yes. Yes, I s’ppose, he might’ve had a limp.”

In the back of the minds of those who pitied ‘his sort,’ there often existed a doubt on the victim’s true guilelessness. Try as the _kinder souls_ might, they rarely uprooted that doubt.

It was only a flash, only the twitch of his fingers, but for one second, Erasmus thought the King looked relieved.

“Thank you, madame. Return to your seat. Jacques?” The court fell dead silent. To the left, almost out of Erasmus’s sight, a woman gripped her son’s arm in a vice. “If you would please approach.”

“No,” pleaded the woman in a tight, choked voice. The son stood, but it took him a few moments to disentangle his mother’s grip, and even then, she reached uselessly for him when he moved past her to the front. As he walked, he heavily favored his left side; his hair, however, was much darker, and not terribly curly - but then, the maid had never mentioned a slave’s collar. 

“Jacques--” Began Herode, his shoulders back and spine straightened.

“This trial is a farce!” The man snarled, everything about him coiled in hatred and malice. “Protecting a slave for a crime he obviously committed? None have come forth to second that he was _anywhere_ on the day of Mathe’s death. His own master sits in silence-- and you would have _me_ accused?”

Herode stood, his outrage at his King being spoken to in such a manner (and his own words interrupted) clear in the scowl on his face. “Jacques! You must remain silent until questioned.”

The King of Vere didn’t wave off his Councillor, but he did speak, his voice colder than before. “The slave has no prior incidents.”

Jacques bared his teeth, all righteous indignation. “And I do?” 

“Not only do you and yours have a known dislike for King Damianos,” blunt as a hammer and drawled with a frankly insulting tone, “but you’re a clear candidate for the Councillor’s seat.”

“What want have I for a poisoned seat? Your leadership has doomed Vere to follow Akielos’s whimsy-- our soldiers like dogs to their beck and call- our culture sullied by barbaranism. This defense of a slave proves it! Your court is, and never will be, _anything_ like your father’s. It won’t even match up to your uncle’s, and he murdered my brother!” 

Several in the crowd leapt to their feet at that, their voices raised to drown his out. Unfortunately, they didn’t succeed.

Over it all, Herode called for order. He also didn’t succeed.

“I committed no murder,” the man turned to Erasmus even as the guards approached; before they seized him, he spat, “but if I had, it would not have been the last sensible man left in this forsaken court.”

In the uproar that followed, Jacques was forced to his knees and declared to hold malicious intentions toward the crown. After a short-lasting plea for mercy from his mother, Herode declared him guilty for murder, as none others fit the evidence gathered. Duly, the guards escorted Erasmus to Prince Torveld’s side and released him from his bonds.

The execution was to happen in Ios, to be made a public warning of those who choose violence as their means for protest. 

His master, hand tight on Erasmus’ shoulder and face pale, murmured that perhaps they would return to Patras early. The business of two kingdoms holding joint court was not a lesson they needed to learn.

 

 

The nobles left Bakkhos’ lodge far wearier and warier than when they arrived. A few attempted to console the hand-wringing host that it was no fault of his, but even those hurried to return to their dwellings (especially those who took the chance to make the shorter journey to Arles).

On the way out of the lodge, his arms full of his lord, Torveld’s, packs, Erasmus paused in the doorway to Councillor Mathe’s temporary quarters. The servants had removed the stained rug immediately. He could imagine where the Councillor had fallen with its lack: right in front of the misleading bookshelf. It looked sturdy, but he knew from the bruise on his foot that one wrong nudge would unbalance the shelves and send objects tumbling.

In fact, such a consequence was a near-certainty for any who slept in the room and was not careful with where they walked.

He glanced at the top shelf where the heavy globe had sat. He followed a logical trail of its tumble from shelf to floor, and where it might be interrupted if a man stood in the way of its descent after he had accidentally, perhaps drunkenly, bumped the shelf.

A scene that, if a maid were to walk in on, she might panic, worried that she would be accused of the act. To make sure she had no fault, she would bury the globe, and blame the easiest target in residence.

“My lord,” he said once he found Prince Torveld outside the carriage that would take them home, his heart hammering once more. His word could not possibly change a thing - Jacques couldn’t take back the scene he’d made - but the truth would surely choke him if left locked in his chest. “My lord, please. I must speak with King Damianos.”

“He’s a King, not your gossiping friend, Erasmus, no matter what we once knew,” grumbled his lord, whose smile was chased from his face upon his slave’s words. Ever since the trial, he had tried to treat Erasmus delicately, but soon grew frustrated with his own efforts and turned prickly, before he wished to back-track on that and turned soft again (a perpetual cycle that came about whenever he felt guilty, Erasmus had noticed). “We must go. Put the packs in the back, and get in.”

Erasmus put the packs in the back, but he did not get in. Rather, he hung at the entrance, his head dropped low. “ _Please_ , my lord. It’s about the murder.”

“The murder? The trial we were primary suspects of?” His master shook his head as he leaned forward and hissed, “Erasmus, please, don’t be foolish. We must leave the trial behind us. _Get in._ ”

Erasmus’ lip trembled, his eyes wide. He was not one to disobey. It was not in his blood, his training, or his thoughts. The collar around his neck and the cuffs on his wrists were extensions of himself; he would drift away and drown if he didn’t have them as anchors. 

But he also had a debt he could never repay to the man he’d once been intended to give his everything to. More than that, there was a vulnerability between two proud men that had been shared with him, and they had trusted him, and believed in him. One tried to arm him with advice against certain death. The other had apologized to _him_ , as if he were worthy of it, as if his friend truly hadn’t deserved a fate he couldn’t have protested.

“My lord,” he said, his eyes holding Torveld’s, “I’m very sorry. I’ll return soon.”

Then, he turned on a heel and dashed back to the lodge, beelining for a small study no one would think to check. Behind him, Torveld sputtered and yelled-- but as Erasmus thought, he didn’t follow.

**Author's Note:**

> one day I'll write something short. one day I'll finally include smut. til then, join me at [tumblr](http://dekinged.tumblr.com/) if you like.
> 
> thanks for reading!


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